Interview in 2002 when he was also predicting doom. He said we were entering a bear market and was predicting high inflation in the next couple years back then as well. Prediction was for the DOW to go down to 2000 and NASDAQ to 500 and interest rates "through the roof". DOW was 10,000.

And Gold was under 400.

If you took his advice then, you would be up over 300% with gold vs. 30% in the DOW.

Except as to the rule of appointment, the United States have an indefinite discretion to make requisitions for men and money; but they have no authority to raise either by regulations extending to the individual citizens of America.

Schiff destroyed Mish on his show today. Mish works for a tiny firm that has 75 million in assets they manage. 40 million they got when he attacked Schiff. His firm underperformed in all of their strategies except one for only one year. They even managed to lose money. At the same time Schiff's strategy over-performed the market.

He also went into detail how Mish basically called him out when he knew Schiff could not respond over regulations.

As far as Schiff predicting inflation a lot of it is already here. We are severely under performing gold. Companies keep coming out with reports they they are seeing inflation in their inputs. $#@! if you followed Schiff's advice even without hyper inflation you are better off.

The surreal part about this goes right back to Dr. Albert Bartlett's famous statement:

“The greatest shortcoming of the human race is the inability to understand the exponential function.”

What's interesting about doubling rates in terms of fiat currency and debt-money creation, and the reason it looks like it could go on doubling forever, is that the market does react and adjust to it--by devaluing the currency, and trying to reach equilibrium--if given time, and provided the doubling rate doesn't utterly swamp that badly needed time. Everyone forced onto the treadmill takes their perpetual losses, one hundred becomes the new ten, everyone eventually demands just enough to keep pace, and it seems like it could go on forever.

The problem we're facing is the difference between the mathematical requirements of the Ponzi economy on the whole vs. the capacity of the individuals in that economy to continue supporting it, and the disparity between the doubling rates of each. That alone is what spells absolute catastrophe as a mathematical certainty.

The ever-expanding (and accelerating) circle of debt, and all the new debt that is ABSOLUTELY REQUIRED to service the ever-compounding, ever-doubling interest on all the compounded debt, has an exponential doubling rate that exists without regard to labor's ability to keep pace. And that's the wall we're up against now, with a stadium that is "only half full", with what everyone believes must be a long way to go before it fills to the brink. How long it takes to fill the rest of the way is at least as long as it took to fill halfway, right? And that's where these clever idiots with their normalcy biases flying, who suck their finger and hold it to the wind to declare hyperinflation a myth, and based only what they have recently observed, are in for the humbling shock of their lives.

Every time I shake that rickety shack full of sweaty dynamite, I turn to that old codger who warned me about it and say, "See? What do you know about rickety shacks full of sweaty dynamite, old man? This shack is part of my reality, and has been around since before I was born."

Then I climb up and do a dance on the roof of the old shack, just to show him just how stupid and wrong he is.

If you took his advice then, you would be up over 300% with gold vs. 30% in the DOW.

I think Schiff does a disservice to himself by assigning specific timetables toward his predictions. He's like Alex Jones in that regard. Other than that, he's great. A big reason why Ron Paul is so fantastic is that he knows better than to do this.

We have a couple of other dynamics at work. We have huge deflation going on in the monetary supply with debts being written off. We also have price deflation in sectors, electronics for example continue to get cheaper.

We also have severe margin compression. This means wages are not expanding to with inflation, one of the key requirements for hyper inflation. A loaf of bread costing $100,000 is not a big deal when you are making a million per hour. In fact we have wages and work weeks decreasing.

A lot of the inflation is being exported, and a lot of it is showing up in education and medicine. This is causing Medicare to rapidly become the problem that is going to make the budget unbalancable without dealing with the monopoly practices in medicine. If you took away monopoly protections in the medical industry there would be massive overnight deflation there as well.

In New Zealand:
The Coastguard is a Charity
Air Traffic Control is a private company run on user fees
The DMV is a private non-profit
Rescue helicopters and ambulances are operated by charities and are plastered with corporate logos
The agriculture industry has zero subsidies
5% of the national vote, gets you 5 seats in Parliament
A tax return has 4 fields
Business licenses aren't even a thing nor are capital gains taxes
Constitutional right to refuse any type of medical care

ya know, a lot of the Austrians (Ron Paul included) who have harped about mass inflation for the last 5 years have simply been wrong. Granted, eventually it will come but Schiff and the others who screamed that the sky is falling have just been wrong. At this point at least.

Relative to what? Remember, the silver lining that is supposed to come with a recession/depression is lower prices. Instead the unemployed are getting hit from all sides.

Given the two choices of simply NOT making the payments versus making the payments with a vast flood of new, devalued money, I predict the second path because it can delay the day of wreck-oning.

I'm not sure about that. The problem with it is that the federal government's obligations with Social Security and Medicare extend way out into the indefinite future. It's not something where you can pay it off with worthless money and be done with it.

Just curious- has Schiff ever had anything positive to say about the economy- even before the current economic crisis- or is he always bearish?

Heh....Henry Hazlitt wrote in the 1940s that Brenton woods would collapse...it took 30 years for that to occur. Was he wrong?

Ron Paul spoke in the 1970s about the collapse of the Federal. Reserve system and the collapse of fiat money. 40 years later, we are still using paper money. Is Ron Paul wrong?

Schiff said in 2002 that we would have high inflation. We do already. Gasoline a decade ago was a buck a gallon...now it's 4 fold that. Commodity prices are much higher than a decade ago. Plus, inflation also acts to prevent prices from falling, so while computers and HD TVs are cheaper and better than they were a decade ago, you have to ask if they would be even cheaper today had we less inflation.

Also, if Schiff's predictions come to fruition, is it really a big deal if he's off by a few years given what he's predicting? I mean, when an entire financial system melts down, does it really matter if it's 2008 vs. 2014? Unless you plan on dying before it collapses, I would think it's immaterial whether it happens this year or next year. It's something that hasn't occurred in 200 years in this country: a collapse of the dollar. You're complaining because Schiff's predictions were a few years off given the perspective of what he' s predicting? Lol....

Besides, as I said, we have had high inflation. Look at everything from houses to stocks to bonds to commodities for the past decade.

Schiff also made a good point about the government's inflation numbers. He said if you used the way they calculated them in the 70's then we probably have 70's style inflation now ... they change their basket of goods around to include all the cheap stuff from China and proclaim 2% inflation. Larry McDonald said in 1980 "only government bureaucrats don't drive or eat"

In my opinion, Schiff is the man. Schiff, Rogers, Sprott...three guys I listen to as often as possible. Schiff has mentioned hyperinflation in the past but has also admitted he couldn't predict the Greek crisis which has delayed our collapse a little longer. If you listened to him and bought silver on the day Obama was inaugurated in January, 2009, then your silver would be up around 300% today. Schiff is also very good at explaining things in simple terms so the average Joe or Jane can understand which, unfortunately, is what I consider to be one of Ron Paul's weaknesses and I love RP.

I don't know what 'debate' can be had? Hyperinflation can occur if your government causes it but it is a choice.Hyperdeflation can occur if the 'Fed' sucks all the money back in.You already do have high inflation (see shadowstats.com for the CPI derived from the original methodology or as close as can be).

"All eyes are opened, or opening to the rights of man, let the annual return of this day(July 4th), forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them."Thomas JeffersonJune 1826

Schiff destroyed Mish on his show today. Mish works for a tiny firm that has 75 million in assets they manage. 40 million they got when he attacked Schiff. His firm underperformed in all of their strategies except one for only one year. They even managed to lose money. At the same time Schiff's strategy over-performed the market.

He also went into detail how Mish basically called him out when he knew Schiff could not respond over regulations.

As far as Schiff predicting inflation a lot of it is already here. We are severely under performing gold. Companies keep coming out with reports they they are seeing inflation in their inputs. $#@! if you followed Schiff's advice even without hyper inflation you are better off.

Want to know a little secret? Some of the best economists are terrible investors. And vice-versa.

Mish's performance results doesn't mean he isn't accurate in his criticisms of Schiff.

I know the world didn't end and there isn't an international police state at this point, but when it comes to loss of rights, hyper-inflation, and the decrease of standard of living, in reality it is hard to notice and that's why the people (aka "sheeple") never get mad. But think about the last 12 years starting with the end of the dot.com bubble...

Recession started in 2000 during Bill Clinton's last year, (revisionists claim everything was peaches and cream under William "Bomb some country when I $#@! someone" Clinton but the decline in the stock market was quite visible after 1999) but recovery was supposed to be around the corner especially when a "Republican" was elected into office.

Then in 2001, things got slightly worse, then 9-11 happened which gave an explanation that 'things will get worse in the future but we'll get Bin Laden by Christmas and the market will start to recover in six months,' but instead things got slightly worse and there was no recovery.

Think about the progressions of the mid-2000s, everything sucked except that your home increased in value and now when you get bankrupt you still owe the credit card companies so layaway went away and everyone had a full deck of plastic. Now in 2006, all the phoney baloney mortgages started to fail suddenly housing prices have been steeply declining ever since. (Which is cool if you want to buy a home honestly.)

Now starting around in the late 2000s it was impossible for college students to get decent jobs, after I graduated I worked at Dunkin Donuts. A lot of other people were laid off or lost their jobs with no new jobs to replace those jobs. Retirement funds evaporates so much less people could retire. Gas goes to around 4.50 a gallon, the deflation "crisis" swiftly hit (though I know deflation is in theory bad it was $#@!in' sweet paying $1.60 for a gallon of gas and $2.40 for a gallon of milk! Economics be damned I loved the buying power!), and now even banks go on welfare.

Now today, somehow student debt even exceeds credit card debt, and still no young people are getting decent jobs. A president who all intents and purposes grew the country into a sicker economic state gets re-elected, and the tea-party gets high-jacked by the Neo-Cons. Though the good news is "deficit reduction" (not "balanced budget" ) is something at least that has proven more popular than in the past. (Though reducing a 4 trillion dollar deficit to a 3 trillion dollar deficit is not an accomplishment, it's like going from 3 packs to two packs of Newports.)

My bad humor aside, if all that took place in one year, it would fulfill all the extreme fantasies and predictions of Schiff, Jones, Glenn Bleccck, and our favorite right-wing pundits but it didn't. I didn't even touch on civil liberties in that story. Now, is twelve years really that long of a time? We wouldn't imagine our lives being the way they are now in 1999. It's not Weimar Republic Germany, but this is really bad. It's like we're all those Krokodil addicts watching ourselves die, doing nothing about it except talking about injecting less "Krok" because we're running out of good veins to put in the needle.

I remember by the summer of 2000, the slowdown was clear. Yahoo news had a section for layoff announcements, but the financial talking heads were still a-ga-ga about the "new economy" and that loyoffs in manufacturing "would not matter since the US economy was evolving away from it".

My boss at the time even said during that election cycle that "This is not one that a candidate should want to win" because the economy was going to run aground within a year.

By summer of 2001 it was obvious that the technology sector has exhausted itself too.

Schiff destroyed Mish on his show today. Mish works for a tiny firm that has 75 million in assets they manage. 40 million they got when he attacked Schiff. His firm underperformed in all of their strategies except one for only one year. They even managed to lose money. At the same time Schiff's strategy over-performed the market.

He also went into detail how Mish basically called him out when he knew Schiff could not respond over regulations.

As far as Schiff predicting inflation a lot of it is already here. We are severely under performing gold. Companies keep coming out with reports they they are seeing inflation in their inputs. $#@! if you followed Schiff's advice even without hyper inflation you are better off.

Originally Posted by whippoorwill

the U.S. has $$$300 TRILLION$$$ in unfunded libilitys to pay for. I don't no what M3 is right now but I'd bet there isn't that many dollars in the world! Something is going to 'give'.

There needn't be $300T for all the liabilities to be paid for, especially as the time horizons on those debts are not simultaneous. (This isn't to say they're a good thing, obviously.)

As a side note, do you have a source for that number? [http://www.usdebtclock.org/ and others all seem to have the amount pegged at just north of $100T]

I love those "unfunded liability" numbers. They assume that you can take all the benefits people have qualified for (like say somebody who has been working for 30 years and has "x" amount of credits earned towards Social Security earned but is not retired and collecting them- they multiply that by his remaining life expectancy and that becomes his "unfunded liability") and have to pay for all 70 or however many years with just taxes collected this year. At $3 trillion a year currently being spent, it would take us 100 years to spend that alleged $300 trillion.

The shadow banking system - blamed for aggravating the financial crisis - grew to a new high of $67 trillion globally last year, a top regulatory group said, calling for tighter control of the sector.
A report by the Financial Stability Board (FSB) on Sunday appeared to confirm fears among policymakers that the so-called shadow banking system of non-bank intermediaries continues to harbour risks to the financial system.
The FSB, a task force from the world's top 20 economies, also called for greater control of shadow banking, a corner of the financial universe made up of entities such as money market funds that has so far escaped the web of rules that is tightening around traditional banks.

"The FSB is of the view that the authorities' approach to shadow banking has to be a targeted one," the group wrote in a report, noting the current lax regulation of the sector.
"The objective is to ensure that shadow banking is subject to appropriate oversight and regulation to address bank-like risks to financial stability," it said.
Officials at the European Commission in Brussels also see closer oversight of the sector as important in preventing a repeat of the financial crisis that has toppled banks over the past five years and rocked the euro zone.
The European Commission is expected to propose EU-wide rules for shadow banking next year.
The United States is already rolling out a framework of new rules for the $2.5 trillion money market industry, which pools money from investors to put in low-risk financial assets that resemble deposits in a bank.
During the crisis, heavy exposure to collapsed investment bank Lehman Brothers caused the net asset value of one fund - the Reserve Primary Fund - to drop below $1 per share, breaking an implicit promise of a guaranteed minimum value.
Unlike banks, such funds are not backed up by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, and critics say a sudden depositor flight from the sector could have equally devastating consequences as a traditional run on a bank.

The Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) - a new body of regulators including the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) - said last week it would not limit itself to money market funds.

It said that "regulated and unregulated or less-regulated cash management products may pose risks that are similar to those posed by money market funds" and that it would address any risks arising in those areas.

AMERICA HAS LARGEST SYSTEMThe FSB has signaled a two-pronged approach to regulating shadow banking, with tough rules such as possible capital charges and limits on the size and nature of a mainstream bank's exposure to shadow banks.
Other shadow banking activities which are seen as less systemically risky could face greater transparency requirements.
Critics of this regulatory drive say that the definition the FSB uses to describe shadow banks is intentionally vague, allowing them to probe and potentially regulate corners of the financial universe that are seen as harmless.
The FSB said shadow banking around the world more than doubled to $62 trillion in the five years to 2007, and had grown to $67 trillion in 2011 - more than the total economic output of all the countries in the study.
America had the largest shadow banking system, said the FSB, with assets of $23 trillion in 2011, followed by the euro area with $22 trillion and the United Kingdom at $9 trillion.
The U.S. share of the global shadow banking system has declined in recent years, the FSB said, while the shares of the United Kingdom and the euro area have increased.
The FSB advocated better controls, but cautioned at the same time that the sector can also be a source of much-needed credit for business and consumers.
"Non-bank creditors that smell, feel, and sound like banks but aren't in name are clearly the problem; while non-bank creditors that do not, and are not linked to the banking system, surely offer us a welcome reduced dependence on banks," said Pete Han from the Cass Business School in London.
Forms of shadow banking can include securitization, a method to transform bank loans into a tradeable instrument that can then be used to refinance credit, making it easier to lend.
In the run-up to the crisis, however, banks such as Germany's IKB stored billions of euros of such instruments in off-balance sheet vehicles, which later unraveled.
Another example is a repurchasing agreement, or repo, where a player such as a hedge fund or a blue chip company sells securities to a bank, agreeing to repurchase them later.
The bank may then lend those bonds onto another hedge fund, taking a position on the government debt. Such agreements are used by banks to lend and borrow. A risk could arise if one of the parties in the chain collapses.

"All eyes are opened, or opening to the rights of man, let the annual return of this day(July 4th), forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them."Thomas JeffersonJune 1826

I know the world didn't end and there isn't an international police state at this point, but when it comes to loss of rights, hyper-inflation, and the decrease of standard of living, in reality it is hard to notice and that's why the people (aka "sheeple") never get mad. But think about the last 12 years starting with the end of the dot.com bubble...

Recession started in 2000 during Bill Clinton's last year, (revisionists claim everything was peaches and cream under William "Bomb some country when I $#@! someone" Clinton but the decline in the stock market was quite visible after 1999) but recovery was supposed to be around the corner especially when a "Republican" was elected into office.

Then in 2001, things got slightly worse, then 9-11 happened which gave an explanation that 'things will get worse in the future but we'll get Bin Laden by Christmas and the market will start to recover in six months,' but instead things got slightly worse and there was no recovery.

Think about the progressions of the mid-2000s, everything sucked except that your home increased in value and now when you get bankrupt you still owe the credit card companies so layaway went away and everyone had a full deck of plastic. Now in 2006, all the phoney baloney mortgages started to fail suddenly housing prices have been steeply declining ever since. (Which is cool if you want to buy a home honestly.)

Now starting around in the late 2000s it was impossible for college students to get decent jobs, after I graduated I worked at Dunkin Donuts. A lot of other people were laid off or lost their jobs with no new jobs to replace those jobs. Retirement funds evaporates so much less people could retire. Gas goes to around 4.50 a gallon, the deflation "crisis" swiftly hit (though I know deflation is in theory bad it was $#@!in' sweet paying $1.60 for a gallon of gas and $2.40 for a gallon of milk! Economics be damned I loved the buying power!), and now even banks go on welfare.

Now today, somehow student debt even exceeds credit card debt, and still no young people are getting decent jobs. A president who all intents and purposes grew the country into a sicker economic state gets re-elected, and the tea-party gets high-jacked by the Neo-Cons. Though the good news is "deficit reduction" (not "balanced budget" ) is something at least that has proven more popular than in the past. (Though reducing a 4 trillion dollar deficit to a 3 trillion dollar deficit is not an accomplishment, it's like going from 3 packs to two packs of Newports.)

My bad humor aside, if all that took place in one year, it would fulfill all the extreme fantasies and predictions of Schiff, Jones, Glenn Bleccck, and our favorite right-wing pundits but it didn't. I didn't even touch on civil liberties in that story. Now, is twelve years really that long of a time? We wouldn't imagine our lives being the way they are now in 1999. It's not Weimar Republic Germany, but this is really bad. It's like we're all those Krokodil addicts watching ourselves die, doing nothing about it except talking about injecting less "Krok" because we're running out of good veins to put in the needle.

/end rant

I think the NWO is incrementally getting people used to just being poor. We're slowly getting there.

I love those "unfunded liability" numbers. They assume that you can take all the benefits people have qualified for (like say somebody who has been working for 30 years and has "x" amount of credits earned towards Social Security earned but is not retired and collecting them- they multiply that by his remaining life expectancy and that becomes his "unfunded liability") and have to pay for all 70 or however many years with just taxes collected this year. At $3 trillion a year currently being spent, it would take us 100 years to spend that alleged $300 trillion.

An article by Gary North

"The unfunded liabilities of the U.S. government grew in one year by $11 trillion. So says Prof. Lawrence Kotlikoff of Boston University. He is using figures provided by the Congressional Budget Office.

He makes a good point. Republicans and Democrats in Congress a year ago could not figure ways to cut $210 billion a year for a decade. Meanwhile, the real debt grew by $11 trillion.

The fiscal gap is the present value difference between projected future spending and revenue. It captures all government liabilities, whether they are official obligations to service Treasury bonds or unofficial commitments, such as paying for food stamps or buying drones.

Understand, this is the present value of the gap. It’s not that, over the next 75 years, there will be $11 trillion more debt. It is that the present value of the entire gap is $11 trillion. We need $11 trillion today, invested in high-return capital in the private sector, to meet future obligations."

I love those "unfunded liability" numbers. They assume that you can take all the benefits people have qualified for (like say somebody who has been working for 30 years and has "x" amount of credits earned towards Social Security earned but is not retired and collecting them- they multiply that by his remaining life expectancy and that becomes his "unfunded liability") and have to pay for all 70 or however many years with just taxes collected this year. At $3 trillion a year currently being spent, it would take us 100 years to spend that alleged $300 trillion.

I think the CBOs been fudging the numbers too... but in their favor.

rewritten history with armies of their crooks - invented memories, did burn all the books... Mark Knopfler

I love those "unfunded liability" numbers. They assume that you can take all the benefits people have qualified for (like say somebody who has been working for 30 years and has "x" amount of credits earned towards Social Security earned but is not retired and collecting them- they multiply that by his remaining life expectancy and that becomes his "unfunded liability") and have to pay for all 70 or however many years with just taxes collected this year. At $3 trillion a year currently being spent, it would take us 100 years to spend that alleged $300 trillion.

I rely on the former Comptroller's number of $70 - 100 trillion needed NOW to fund the obligations of SS and medicare into the future. But I think the cost of health care is going to increase so fast under Obamacare that the existing system will be dead and replaced by a Canadian-style system within ten years. And that will change the equation substantially.

The proper concern of society is the preservation of individual freedom; the proper concern of the individual is the harmony of society.

[QUOTE=Acala;4760080]I rely on the former Comptroller's number of $70 - 100 trillion needed NOW to fund the obligations of SS and medicare into the future. But I think the cost of health care is going to increase so fast under Obamacare that the existing system will be dead and replaced by a Canadian-style system within ten years. And that will change the equation substantially.[/QUOTE]